Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890–1920
Biography of Mary H. Askew Mather, 1860-1925
By Nicole Vion, Binghamton University Undergraduate Student
Edited and Updated, May 2021 by Anne M. Boylan
Mary H. Askew Mather was born in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, on December 25, 1860 to Joseph M. Mather and his second wife, Frances E. (Askew) Mather. She was the granddaughter of Dr. Henry F. Askew, a well-known physician in Delaware, her mother's home state. After some years spent in Plainfield, New Jersey, her family moved to Wilmington, Delaware in 1881. There, although her parents had married in a Friends (Quaker) ceremony, Mary Mather was a member of the Westminster Presbyterian Church. She attended Smith College, a private women's liberal arts school located in Northampton, Mass., where she excelled academically and experienced several dynamic events that shaped her future identity. It was at Smith College where she first encountered her genuine sexuality, developing close relationships with fellow female classmates, one of which blossomed into a romance that she documented in her own personal journal. This romance was with her close friend Frona Brooks, another Smith student, which according to Mather was love not just infatuation; the relationship ended before graduation. At Smith, Mather was a popular, social person and an impressive tennis player. She was also president of her class, graduating in 1883 with a keen interest in English. For the rest of her adult life, Mather remained woman-identified, embracing her sexuality during a time period of sexual oppression, especially toward homosexuality.
After graduating from college, Mary Mather moved to Wilmington, where she lived with her parents until their deaths, her father in 1903 and her mother in 1904. Joseph Mather's work in the insurance business and Frances Askew Mather's own property provided a comfortable income for the family. Mary inherited a substantial estate which she used to help support the civic, social and educational movements to which she was committed. These included Associated Charities, a federation of local charitable agencies; the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU); the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) on whose board of directors she served; the Consumers' League of Delaware; the Door of Hope (later the Florence Crittenton Home); the Presbyterian Home Missionary Society; a citizens committee for teaching English to immigrants; the Woman's Peace Party of Wilmington, of which she was a vice-president; the Delaware Association of College Women (later the American Association of University Women-AAUW), of which she was the first president; and especially the Wilmington New Century Club, the premier white women's club in the state, for which she did a stint as president, 1896-1898.
Although the New Century Club avoided taking any position on woman suffrage, the membership included a large group of dedicated suffragists, with whom Mather worked on a variety of projects. The club also had a coterie of anti-suffragists. Mather herself strongly believed in the suffragist cause and stated in an interview for the local Wilmington newspaper, "I believe in women's suffrage first because I am an American. I love my country and my country's flag. I pick up the greatest document in the land and I have no rights under it. I am an alien in Pennsylvania, the state of my birth, where the Declaration of Independence was adopted." (Wilmington Morning News, "Gives Reason for Wanting Suffrage," 22 Aril 1914). By 1909, she had become an officer of the Delaware Equal Suffrage Association (DESA), the state's mainstream suffrage organization. Like many of her co-workers, she gained political experience lobbying the state legislature to fund a women's college in Newark, which opened in 1914. That experience translated well into lobbying the legislature (in 1913) to amend the state constitution to provide votes for women, and joining a delegation (in 1914) hoping to convince the state's two U.S. Senators to support a federal amendment. In 1914, too, when suffrage leaders were using colors and slogans to brand their cause, she composed the lyrics for a song, "The Little Yellow Rose of Equal Suffrage." With music by E. Rose Reese Ort, the song received a copyright in 1916.
After 1914, Mary Askew Mather's suffrage activism declined, as she devoted increasing amounts of her time to another commitment: chairing the New Century Club's Literature and Library Extension Committee. Mary had a special interest in literacy, books and libraries, and on building free, diverse collections of literary works for all. Through the New Century Club, she worked on forming free, traveling libraries for residents of Delaware, particularly in rural areas and for children. During the Great War, she helped provide books in Braille to visually impaired soldiers. In 1921, she and her life partner, Alice P. Smyth, donated a Browsing Room, patterned after one she had used at Smith, to Delaware Women's College.
In all of Mather's reformist work, Alice P. Smyth was her intimate partner and co-worker. After her parents' deaths, Mary Mather sold the family home at 1021 Madison Street, purchasing the large historic house, "Timberton" at 1212 Gilpin Avenue, where she lived with Alice the remainder of her life. Locals routinely referred to the house as "their home"; it was the site of receptions and fund-raisers for the causes that engaged the couple's concerns. Historians would describe the relationship between Mary Mather and Alice P. Smyth as a "Boston marriage" and it is unclear, based on the documentation of their relationship, whether it was a sexual, romantic relationship or merely platonic love. Alice P. Smyth and Mary Mather were in the public eye mostly for their activist collaboration and from them both attending Mather's 40th college reunion in 1923, where Alice became a member "by adoption" of the class of 1883, and where Mary reunited with her old school and with old friends. Together, the couple worked rigorously on contributing to their activist ambitions - a partnership of bountiful reform.
On May 8, 1925, Mary H. Askew Mather died at the age of 65; she was buried with her parents at the Wilmington and Brandywine Cemetery. Two years later, her widowed partner Alice P. Smyth provided funds to establish a rural book service within the New Castle County Free Library system as a memorial to her loving companion, Mary Mather, to commemorate and honor her memory through the distribution of library books in rural areas of the county. In Mary Mather's will, which included bequests to the Browsing Room at Delaware Women's College, the YWCA, and the Florence Crittenton Mission, she provided Alice Smyth with half of a life interest in the home they had shared, and bequeathed to her a number of items of furniture and personal effects, including her "four stone diamond ring." In turn, at her own death in 1955, Alice Smyth donated their home and $5,000 to the YWCA, bequeathed $1,000 to maintain the Browsing Room at the (former) Women's College, and gave $20,000 to the New Castle County Free Library fund, to help sustain the rural traveling book service "in memory of my deceased friend Mary H. Askew Mather."
Sources:
Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Collection Name: Historic Pennsylvania Church and Town Records; Reel: 802
Mather, Mary H. Askew, journals and correspondence, 1882-1883, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, MA
Ancestry.com. U.S., Find A Grave Index, 1600s-Current [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.
Dorn, Charles. For the Common Good: A New History of Higher Education in America. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2017.
Delaware's Federal Writers' Project. Delaware: A Guide to the First State. St. Clair Shores: Somerset Publishers, Inc., 2014.
"Death of Joseph M. Mather," Every Evening (Wilmington, DE), August 25, 1903, p. 5
"Death of Mrs. Frances A. Mather," Wilmington Morning News, April 28, 1904, p. 1
Frances Mather will, file #303, New Castle County Register of Wills, Wilmington, Delaware (available via Ancestry.com)
Wilmington Morning News. "Gives Reason For Wanting Suffrage - Miss Mary H. Askew Makes Interesting Address Before Current Events Class," 22 April 1914. Newspapers.com
https://www.newspapers.com/image/154058429/?terms=mary+h+askew+mather
The Evening Journal (Wilmington Delaware). "Answer Queries At Luncheon: Questionnaire Feature of Event Given By New Century Club," 15 January 1926. Newspapers.com
https://www.newspapers.com/image/160217216/?terms=mary+h+askew+mather
The Evening Journal (Wilmington Delaware). "Century Club Booklet Out: Contains Names of Members, Offices, Committees for the New Year," 16 September 1922. Newspapers.com
https://www.newspapers.com/image/154174925/?terms=mary+h+askew+mather
The Evening Journal (Wilmington Delaware). "Obituary: Miss M. H. A. Mather, Club Woman, Dead," 09 May 1925. Newspapers.com
https://www.newspapers.com/image/160366136/?terms=mary+h+askew+mather
The Evening Journal (Wilmington, Delaware). "Local Library Circulation is over 500,000," 28 July 1927, p. 8. Newspapers.com
https://www.newspapers.com/image/159986580/?terms=%22Mary%20Mather%22&match=1
"The Little Yellow Rose of Equal Suffrage," words by Mary H. Askew Mather, music by E. Rose Reese Ort, sheet music © 1916, Delaware Historical Society, Wilmington, Delaware
Mary H. Askew Mather Will, file #9569, New Castle County Recorder of Wills Office, Wilmington, Delaware
Alice P. Smyth Will, file #37762, New Castle County Recorder of Wills Office, Wilmington, Delaware
New Castle County Free Library "Book-mobile", Wilmington, Delaware
Susan Van Dyne, "'Abracadabra': Intimate Inventions by Early College Women in the United States," Feminist Studies 42, no. 2 (2016): 280-310.
Anne M. Boylan, Votes for Delaware Women (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2021).